


Job To Do

by cytheriafalas



Category: SHINee
Genre: Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 02:30:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt from <a href="http://angelus-castratus.tumblr.com/">angelus-castratus</a>. "2min with a theme of “taemin being angelic” or something like that." This was not what you meant, and I'm sorry, but I had to write it anyway. This was all I could think of! Follow me <a href="http://fangirlingtendencies.tumblr.com">here</a> to keep updated on writing, the universe, and everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Job To Do

Minho wasn’t sure when it had happened. He didn’t know when the boy had first appeared in his life, but he loved him for it. He loved whatever gods there were that had placed Lee Taemin on the earth with him and allowed them to meet.

They were in the local park near Minho’s house. It was generally empty by about three in the afternoon and it was almost five now. Taemin was sitting, leaning against the smooth bark of a tree. Minho was lying on his back, staring up at the boughs of the tree, late afternoon light filtering down and making Taemin’s hair glow golden.

“Taemin-ah, when did we first meet?” Minho asked, rolling onto his stomach and looking sideways at him.

Taemin was sitting an arm’s length away, but he glanced down at Minho when he spoke, a soft smile on his lips. “I don’t know, actually,” Taemin said. He brushed his fingers through Minho’s hair, picking out a few strands of grass. “I’ve known you for so long, I can’t really remember. It must have been school, right?”

Minho shrugged, then rolled over once more until his head was in Taemin’s lap. “Yeah, it must have been.” He looked up at Taemin, his face upside down in his vision, and had to smile. “You’re so beautiful.”

For some reason, Taemin looked sad. He held out his hand, palm down and Minho reached up to press their palms together, twining his fingers with Taemin’s. Then the sadness was gone, a faint blush on his cheeks.

“Don’t tease,” Taemin chastised. He flipped their hands and kissed the back of Minho’s hand. “We should probably get you home.”

“Shouldn’t I be the responsible one, getting you home before dark?” Minho asked, sitting up. He leaned in and kissed the plumpest part of Taemin’s lower lip. Taemin smiled that special smile of his, the slow curve of his lips until he was grinning so widely his teeth were flashing. He kissed the same way he smiled, gentle brushes of lip and tongue drawing Minho closer.

Taemin broke away before the kiss could begin to become any more heated. “You really do need to get home. Didn’t your mom say something about dinner?”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Minho said, letting Taemin pull him to his feet. “You’ll walk with me, right?”

“Always,” Taemin promised, looking more somber than Minho remembered him ever being. He kept Minho’s hand in his.

“I can’t believe it took us so long to get together,” Minho said, squeezing Taemin’s fingers. Taemin returned the gesture, pressing a little closer.

“I know. A month today, though.”

“With hundreds of months to go.”

“Yeah,” Taemin said. He stopped on the hill above Minho’s house and took both of Minho’s hands in his. “I love you so much, hyung. Remember that, okay?”

“I love you, too,” Minho said, a perplexed frown on his face. “Is everything okay? You’ve been weird all day.”

Taemin lunged at him, wrapping his arms around Minho so hard it was difficult to breathe. “I’m okay. I just fought with my parents today. I love you.”

“You just said that,” Minho said, tilting his head so he could kiss Taemin’s cheek. “You can come over if you want. Mom would gladly feed you. She likes you more than she likes me.”

“I can’t today, but… I love you.”

Minho gave Taemin a look but nodded. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow. I love you.”

Oddly enough, Taemin watched him walk down the hill and all the way to his house. He paused by the door to turn around, and Taemin was still standing there, his hands in his pockets. He waved when Minho waved, but stayed there, even when Minho closed the door behind him.

“Mom?” Minho called, kicking his shoes off.

“We’re in the dining room, honey,” his mom said after a long pause.

Minho strolled into the dining room and stopped short. Dinner was on the table and his mother and sister were there, but there was a strange man sitting in his father’s seat. His chair was still empty and Minho took a hesitant step toward it. He could see tearstains on his sister’s cheeks and no one had touched their food except for the strange man.

He turned to go around the table and saw his father lying face down in a pool of blood. Minho pressed his hands to his mouth, vomit rising in his throat. The only warning he had was his mother’s scream and then he felt a sharp pain at the back of his head.

\---

Oddly enough, the next thing Minho knew, he heard the local news reporter, her voice not in stereo like he was used to hearing through his TV.

“An entire neighborhood is in mourning tonight as it tries to understand how an entire, well-respected family was murdered. It appears to be the work of a serial killer last seen in Busan. The deceased are forty-five year old Choi Minkyu, his wife forty-three year old Choi Kyoungmi, and two children, a twenty-two year old daughter Choi Mina, home on a break from university, and his nineteen year old son Choi Minho.”

Minho felt as though a cold shock ran through his body. It wasn’t possible. It completely wasn’t possible. The last thing he remembered was walking into the dining room and then there was nothing until he heard her voice. It wasn’t like waking up from a dream. It was literally as though he stepped into the dining room and then into his front lawn, with nothing in between.

“Minho?” Taemin’s voice called. Minho’s head snapped around and he jumped to his feet. He couldn’t see Taemin anywhere.

“Taemin-ah? Taemin-ah, where are you?”

A gentle hand pressed to his shoulder. “I’m right here, Minho. It’s okay.”

He turned around, arms reaching to hug Taemin, but he froze. Taemin looked… different. He still had the same face, the same body, same voice, but he was… different. He couldn’t figure out what it was. He was so breathtakingly beautiful that Minho actually did forget to breathe for a few seconds.

“What’s going on?” Minho asked. His voice was frantic with fear and confusion. “What does she mean my family’s dead? I don’t remember--”

“I took it from you before you died. You will remember with time.”

“I’m not dead!” Minho exclaimed. “I’m here!”

Taemin pointed over his shoulder and Minho turned slowly. Police were wheeling out a gurney with a blanket-covered body. He could see his sister’s hair hanging off the side. The second was clearly him; he could see a silver band on his middle finger when a gust of wind lifted the sheet slightly. He thumbed at the identical ring on his finger.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Taemin put his arm around him, rubbing Minho’s back. “Stay calm, Minho. I’ll explain.”

Minho nodded. He could feel his heart pounding, which was so strange being as he’d just seen his body wheeled into a _hearse_.

“My people have been called many things through the years. You all call us guardian angels. I’m your guardian angel.”

Minho stared at him. “So… so, if I believe you, and I’m not sure that I do, you, what… Guarded me to walk directly into my own murder?”

“I don’t get to decide these things. It’s just my job to make sure you get where you’re supposed to go. I took care of you until I couldn’t anymore.”

Minho sat down on the ground. He supposed if he wasn’t dead, it probably would have hurt. As it was, the pain he felt was not physical. “Then everything was a lie?”

Taemin crouched next to him, and suddenly he was the boy Minho knew. He took Minho’s hands in his. “No. None of it was a lie. Well, I mean, the parts where I led you to believe I was a normal human boy, that was a lie. But I love you. I love you so much you don’t understand how hard it was for me to see you walk into that house, knowing your last moments would be fear and pain. I wanted to protect you from that, but I couldn’t. When we get too wrapped up, when we save the wrong person, things _must_ be corrected. The Black Death? Someone didn’t want their charge to drown. Yellow Fever? Same thing. He tried to save her from falling off a horse and breaking her neck.”

“I need to ask you something, and you need to not lie to me.” Minho waited until Taemin nodded. “Am I dead?”

“Yes.”

“And my mom and dad and sister?”

“Dead.”

The world came crashing down around his ears. “Oh god.”

Taemin hugged Minho tight to his chest. “I know. I know it’s hard to understand right now, but everything is going to be okay.”

“Am I going to lose you? Now that I’m dead. Are you going to go away?”

“Never,” Taemin promised. “I’m yours forever. I’ll still be given my charges, but whenever I’m not actively protecting them, I’m with you. Lifetimes can pass between assignments.”

“My family is dead.”

“Do you want to see them?” Taemin asked. “You’ll be able to see them whenever you like, but I have to take you there this first time. It takes a little bit of practice to learn your way around.”

Minho stared at him. “I can see them?”

“Minho, you’re dead. Any person that has lived and died in the course of history, you can see.”

“Really?”

Taemin smiled that beautiful, slow smile of his. “Really.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Come on. They want to see you.”

He stood and took Taemin’s offered hand. “It’s a little disorienting at first, so if you want to close your eyes, you can.”

Minho looked once more back at his house, the last two gurneys just rolling down the sidewalk toward the coroner’s van. Then he looked back at Taemin and any fear or sadness he felt faded. He nodded and closed his eyes, hearing Taemin’s soft voice counting down from three and then everything _whooshed_ around him, but Taemin’s hand was still on his.


End file.
